


Only the wind behind us

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Childbirth, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Family Feels, Farm/Ranch Life, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Married Life, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Romance, Tenderness, Trans Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-06-24 08:42:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19720180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Connor reaches up to lightly trace the worst of the shrapnel scars on Hank's brow, having long since memorized the raised skin by touch. A pair of dark-eyed mourning doves chatter somewhere nearby, so tender and easy to startle. They bring to mind the old memory of Hank's lips at his calf."Do you remember," Connor murmurs, fingertips still brushing over Hank's closed lids, "when you told me I was brighter than a desert star?"





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started as a twitter thread back in April and has since gone through some recent adaptation and revision. Big s/o to Rox for always lending a hand with helping me peer review!
> 
> Connor presents femininely in the beginning of this story when he’s still making ends meet as a saloon sex worker, but when he meets Hank and throughout the rest of their years together he will exclusively use he/him pronouns and present masculine. PLEASE TAKE NOTE: While he does loosely bind later in the story. Connor does not experience intense bodily dysphoria and allows Hank to touch his chest and lower half without discomfort.
> 
> For anybody who didn’t read the original thread, Connor will make the choice to have a family with Hank in the second part of the story during their retirement years. There will be a surplus of pregnancy, miscarriage, and childbirth scenes in part two, so please take care and read at your own personal discretion. RK900's role is fulfilled by an OC named Natalia, who is married to Gavin Reed. I promise Gavin doesn't get too much screen time though, lol.

  
  
  
The ride into town had been long and hot. Sumo is nearly frothing at the mouth around his bridle and almost dunks his whole head in the water trough when Hank finally swings off his wide back, boots thudding down in the parched dust outside the saloon. There’s piano music drifting out the swinging doors and a mangy old dog sprawled at one shady corner of the porch, but otherwise it’s the most inviting sight he’s seen in days.

After Sumo’s had a long drink, Hank hands the reins and a silver dollar off to a lingering stable boy and watches the towheaded kid lead the big horse over to the stables across the street. Sumo should be taken care of for the night, then, and all that’s left now is for Hank to sit his weary ass down on a chair that isn’t a saddle and then drink something strong until he falls off it again.

He shrugs out of his riding coat and drapes it in the crook of one arm. Dusk is threatening to fall but they’ve still got an hour or two before full dark. As soon as he steps through the saloon doors every eye in the place swerves to the gold badge pinned to his vest and then the pistol holstered at his hip.

For a long moment, nothing and no one in the whole place moves except for the self-playing piano and the curls of cigarette smoke wafting into the air. Even the bartender stops polishing glasses with his dingy rag and watches Hank from the corner of his eye, top lip almost imperceptibly twitching with nerves as the newcomer trudges down to the end of the bar and takes a seat.

“Whisky neat,” Hank says, sighing in immediate relief as he settles on the stool. He holds up two fingers when the bartender doesn’t move straight away, spurs jingling when he hitches one boot up onto the low rung of his chair. “Two rounds to start, if you could.”

The bartender nods and turns away to fetch a glass, and then a slim figure slips onto the empty stool at Hank’s right, light-footed with a head full of dark ringlets.

“We don’t see a Texas Ranger come through these parts too often,” the soft, raspy voice says, lovely and husky all at once. It makes the hair on the backs of Hank’s arms prickle in a strange way, and when he looks up he finds a pair of warm brown eyes staring back at him. “Are you here on business?”

“Might be,” Hank says, not looking away even as the bartender sets his drinks down on the scarred wooden counter. His gaze slides down from the pretty face to the corseted bodice and gauzy cotton blouse hanging off one shoulder, then the ruffled pantaloons and long legs covered in silk stockings. He takes a glass in hand and slips it down the bar to the ethereal being sitting beside him, then squeezes one eye shut so it crinkles at the edges. “Are _you?_ ”

“Might be,” that sweet voice echoes, and then Hank watches as his new companion knocks their head back and swallows the whisky in one gulp, a sheen of sweat glistening at their throat and collarbones. “Why don’t you finish your drink and then come sit with me over here for a spell.”

Behind them, the low din of the saloon floor seems to have gradually returned. Men keep drinking and playing cards, and some of the pretty harlot girls in their ruffled skirts snap open folded fans to keep themselves cool, flushed and rosy in the face even without rouge on their cheeks.

Hank skims a fingertip around the edge of his glass and then throws it back, wiping the back of his hand across his beard with a little smile. He hadn’t come in here with the intent to chase tail, but when a ripe opportunity comes knocking he doesn’t suppose he’s ever been one to truly deprive himself.

He holds out a hand and his new companion takes it, long fingers somehow cool against his palm.

“Lead the way, darlin’,” Hank says, letting himself be pulled across the room until he’s gently pushed down into a high-backed armchair in a corner by the window. He leaves the spread between his leather-clad thighs wide open and his guest slides right into his lap without hesitation, nimble as a cat come to lap at a saucer of cream.

“What’s your name, Ranger?”

“Anderson,” Hank says gruffly, still hearing that edge of business in his tone rather than familiarity, but his companion doesn’t raise any cause to question it. “And yours?”

That dark head leans in close to whisper, one fine hand braced there in the middle of Hank’s chest. Voice confident, defiant, only meant for Hank’s ears and nobody else. “I think I’d like for you to call me Connor.”

 _Connor._ The name makes Hank pause, but only for a moment. He’s spent the majority of his career being lauded for having a fast hand on the draw and a quick wit to match, but he doesn’t know if he’s catching the full read off the sweet thing currently sprawled in his lap. Nonetheless, he hears his voice speak for him, and before he can stop himself he nuzzles up under that pretty chin and murmurs, “Mmm, are you going to be my good boy?”

Hank earns himself a gasp and a low purr by way of appreciation, and Connor squirms there in his lap with a satisfying little shiver. “Only the best for you, Mr. Anderson,” he says, pressing the lightest brush of a kiss on Hank’s cheekbone, dark lashes swept low and demure.

It’s lighthearted, frivolous necking, the kind of flirting that makes Hank feel younger than he has in years. His bones are still tired and he’s run through with a streak of the kind of exhaustion that would put lesser men flat on their backs, but keeping company with Connor isn’t the worst way to spend an evening in town. Maybe a far cry better than drinking himself into a stupor and holing up in a bachelor’s room until the landlady came in and chased him out with a broom the next afternoon.

He’s teasing his rough fingertips around the lacy garter holding up Connor’s stocking when the saloon doors swing open and another dust-covered stranger walks in, this time without a gold badge at his breast. The day has gone dark outside, inky and empty in the sky behind him. He’s tall and willowy with a build like a scarecrow left out to bake in the sun, the right side of his face scarred from the top of his brow to the corner of his mouth like it’d been slashed clean through with the tip of a bullwhip.

Connor’s entire body stiffens and goes as still as a deer when he turns and catches sight of the man in question. His chest heaves over the top of his girdle, only once, as he draws in a steadying breath and then lets it back out again. All the warmth has drained out of those honey-brown eyes, gone cold and hard as stone. With all the grace and ease of a dancer he stands from Hank’s lap in one fluid motion and walks across the silent saloon, heeled boots tapping on the hardwood floor until he disappears behind the bar and leans out of sight.

The stranger turns to address the room at large, eyes cutting across the small sea of wooden faces. “The fuck all you dogmeat whores staring at?” he asks while the self-playing piano restarts back at its first tune.

There’s just enough of a lull in the song that Hank catches the telltale cock of a shotgun hammer, and when Connor walks around the bar again he doesn’t waste any time before he steadies the barrel on his target and pulls the trigger.

The blast is loud enough to make Hank’s ears ring, and if he hadn’t seen Connor take aim and shoot with his own two eyes, he likely wouldn’t have believed it. Then the shotgun cocks again and even though his target’s already riddled full of buckshot, Connor takes another step forward and pulls the trigger again, this time sending the spray of blood and bullets into the wall behind him.

With a thump the body hits the floor like a sack of bricks, slowly bleeding out where it lays. Nobody else in the saloon says a word as Connor calmly walks over with the broken-down shotgun hanging in the crook of his arm. He looks down at the dead man’s body and spits over it for good measure. 

“Eye for an eye, you son of a bitch,” he says, and then slides a pale palm on the bar top. “Simon, would you be kind enough to get me another drink? I may need one for the road.”

After he downs another three fingers of whiskey, one of the men playing cards in the corner looks between the dead body and Connor and then says, almost hesitantly, “Maybe we should fetch the Sheriff?”

“He’s not in town,” Connor answers without looking up. “You’ll have to wait until morning, unless the Ranger wants to do something about it.”

Every eye swivels back over to Hank where he’s still sitting at ease in the armchair, doing nothing at all but packing tobacco into the pipe he’d pulled from his pocket. It isn’t until he’s struck a match and lit the wad, puffing hard until he begins to pull smoke, that he addresses the room.

“I’ve ridden long and hard for three damn days, and I have no intention of doing anything at all tonight but renting a room and spending my leisure until morning.”

Connor nods, pleased, and goes behind the bar to return the shotgun to wherever he’d found it. Simon grimaces at the mess on the floor and begins rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, more inconvenienced, it would seem, by the sight of the dead body than by the sheer fact of it.

“Somebody help me move him,” he says, and then two chairs scrape across the floor as a pair of the other male patrons get up to come stare down at the dead man. “And call for the cadaver wagon, this one doesn’t need to be seen by the doctor.”

Connor drops a single embroidered handkerchief into the pool of dark blood on the floor before calmly walking back over to Hank, folding himself into the spread of his lap like he’d never gotten up or left.

“That man killed my father ten years ago in cold blood,” Connor says, leaning in to press another sweet kiss on Hank’s cheek that lingers there as he ghosts out a warm breath. “I hated my father.”

Hank tips his face away to blow a stream of violet smoke into the air, careful not to get any in Connor’s face. Thinks about both his options and obligations as a sworn Ranger in the state of Texas, and then decides they can wait—at least for now.

“Guess I’m here on business here after all,” he says, and then cups a big hand around the round seat of Connor’s frilly bloomers before giving a gentle squeeze. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any plans to entertain anybody else tonight, hm?”

“Only you, Ranger,” Connor says, crossing his long legs at the ankle before draping them across the other arm of the chair. “I’m all yours.”

Hank nods, growling out the smallest laugh low in his chest. “Good boy,” he murmurs again, patting Connor’s thigh as they both watch the dead body get slowly dragged out the saloon’s swinging doors and into the starless night.  
  
  
  
  


After a hot meal and a round or two more of whiskey—and then after most of the blood is mopped up off the saloon’s worn ground floor—Connor takes the Texas Ranger by the hand and leads him upstairs to the big four-poster bed where he conducts most of his business meetings. 

It’s a modest room but furnished finely enough considering the type of clientele who usually come up here, rough men ridden hard and always put up wet. There’s a boar bristle brush and silver hand mirror on the vanity by the water basin but not much else lying about by way of personal effects. Connor makes quick work of stoking up the fire in his small hearth and helps Anderson undress, the washtub the scullery maid poured out waiting with curls of steam rising off the top.

Connor strips down to his pantaloons and stockings, leaving his boots and shawl by the armoire, and then letting his cotton blouse fall down over his shoulders as he scrubs layers of desert dust off Anderson’s thick body from head to toe with hard soap. He washes and rinses his silvering hair, too, which is already starting to dry in soft waves by the time the man stands and steps out of the bath.

Under all that dirt, Connor supposes, he’s really quite a handsome sight.

Anderson pats himself dry and observes Connor by firelight with heavy eyes before telling him to come closer. “Let me help you take this off, baby doll," he says, lightly running his hands down Connor’s shoulders and sides until they tug at the laces on his girdle. "You won't need it."

"I hadn't planned on staying too long, Mr. Anderson," Connor says despite all his flirtatious whimsy from earlier, eyes darting toward the big four-poster bed and then back toward the door. These nerves are new, fluttering in his gut now that all the adrenaline from shooting a man dead has worn off. "Had some business to tend to downstairs, you know, with the girls..."

But the Ranger's standing in front of him, as naked as the day he was born, larger than life itself in this small room. They both know good and well that the saloon downstairs is closed down and cleaned up for the night.

"I'd be more than obliged to keep your company, if you’d have me," Anderson says in a low voice. Unlike the other men who grab at Connor’s arms and chest, he reaches out to gently touch the high point of his cheekbone, feather-light. “I hope you know I hadn’t planned on making any arrests tonight or otherwise. Don’t got the time when there are bigger heads to hunt—plus it seems to me like you settled your own score just fine.”

Connor swallows, a balmy flush rushing up his neck while his stomach tightens around a coil of latent fear and unexpected heat. "You strike a fine and impressive figure, sir," he says. "I'm sure any of the girls would be happy to entertain you this evening."  
  
Anderson only laughs, a deep and warm sound. "Perhaps, but none of them are quite so fine a lad as you.”

Connor bats his dark lashes despite the storm of emotion churning through his insides; even in these strange moments of impending peril, he knows how to play the game. "You flatter me, Mr. Anderson."  
  
"Call me Hank," the Ranger says, taking another step closer. "Don’t need any spare formalities when it's just you and me alone, unless you'd really rather go." Hank runs another fingertip down the slope of Connor's bare shoulder where his blouse had slipped off and then lets his hand fall away.

Connor suddenly finds himself desperately wishing it hadn't. “Hank,” he says weakly, testing out the weight and taste of the name on his tongue and nothing else.  
  
"I'm willing to pay for your time if you'll stay all night," Hank says, making sure their eyes meet. "Could I persuade you?"

Connor nods, gone a little dizzy, and doesn't move away when Hank steps ever closer again. The heat radiating off him feels like standing near the fiery belly of an iron stove, the warmth of it steeping down into Connor’s bones. The Ranger traces beneath Connor’s jaw and then swipes a thumb across his lower lip before leaning in for a kiss, far softer than anything Connor is accustomed to or ever expected. 

Hank slots their bodies together slowly, one hand pressed against the small of Connor’s back. He tugs at the girdle laces again and pulls one loop of the bow free, smiling against Connor’s mouth. "I'd prefer there's nothing between us tonight," he says, and suddenly Connor’s knees are shaking.

"You are indeed a persuasive man," he rasps. He feels Hank tug the other loop free and then obediently turns, letting large hands pull the laces loose until Connor can shimmy out of his girdle until it falls to the floor. He stands there in his stockings and underthings, waiting, nipples gone hard under his cotton shift despite the fire warding off the desert’s nighttime chill.

"Come here," Hank says softly, holding out a hand. He draws Connor close again and pushes the other shoulder of his blouse down, pressing a whiskery kiss to Connor's neck before working the fabric over his head. When Connor's chest is exposed, Hank briefly ghosts a passing kiss over a rosy nipple.

“Beautiful," Hank says appreciatively, gently biting at Connor's collarbones, then a freckle on his throat. "Brighter than any desert star."

Connor curls his fingers in Hank's damp waves and holds him close, relishing in every kiss, every swipe of his tongue, every word, intoxicated in a way that whiskey or other pleasures have never brought him.

"You don't belong in a place like this," Hank murmurs, tucking a curl of hair behind Connor’s ear. Then he laughs, gently amused, and kisses his nose. "Especially not when you handle a gun like that. Christ—I could take you anywhere, you know."  
  
"Then take me to bed," Connor tells him, voice unwavering. Hank’s eyes find his in the firelight, intense as twin blue flames—looking for what, Connor doesn't quite know yet. His consent, yes, but Connor’s already given that; somehow he's ready to give himself over to this man who he only just met entirely, if all he did was think to ask.

"You may be more persuasive than I am," Hank says, warm laughter rumbling between them. Connor lays a hand against his broad chest and thinks he may not be able to stand anymore when Hank wraps both arms around him with ease, hoisting him up with strong hands under Connor's rear. "To bed, then."

Connor sighs in relief, wrapping his legs around Hank's thick waist while his arms loop around his neck. It’s a short walk to the four-poster and Hank lays him down with gentle care, staying locked in Connor's embrace, their combined weight making the old bed creak and groan. Connor's still in his stockings and pantaloons but can feel the heavy girth of Hank's cock pressing like a brand in the crease of his thigh. His fingers had brushed against it in the bath but he hadn't taken it in grasp, blushing furiously while Hank guided his hand back up his stomach.

He squirms under his lover's bulk now, far from crushed or uncomfortable, only yearning for more. Hank smiles and kisses Connor's cheeks and soft mouth with the reverence of what Connor imagines to be a wedded husband—it thrills him, delighting him in ways he hadn't known before.

"You aren't accustomed to a gentler touch," Hank says, and it's not a question. Indeed, there are old bruises fading on Connor's thighs and chest and Hank thumbs over them whenever he sees one. "Thankfully, I’m an old and tired man," he says with a wicked smile, the gap between his teeth shining there.

Though the smile may be wicked, Connor already knows with everything in him that the man himself is not. "You are neither old nor weary, Mr. Anderson," Connor murmurs, running his hands over the scarred plane of Hank's muscled back. Hank mouths at his pale throat and he gasps. "Only intent on trying my patience."

"Oh-ho," Hank laughs, nipping at the underside of Connor's jaw. "You'd have me rush our time together, then?" He takes Connor's hands in his and pushes them above his head so their bodies are pressed flush together, blue eyes staring unabashedly into amber brown. Connor doesn't wither under his gaze, entranced by it instead.

"No sir," he whispers, suddenly seeing his own near future spelled out there. "I would not have it."  
  
"I'm glad to hear it," Hank tells him gently, kissing Connor again. "You deserve far better than any quick fuck."

Connor doesn't quite know what he does and doesn't deserve, but he's willing to let Hank show him. Until the break of daylight, he silently prays, when the Sheriff returns and he’s taken off in shackles. He wants to remember this night long after Hank's gone, inevitably disappeared like every other man who promised to take him away. He grips Hank a little more tightly at the thought even if he doesn't mean to.

"Come on now, darlin’," Hank says in good humor, tugging at his pantaloons. "We don't want to ruin your pretty bloomers." Connor lifts his hips and Hank tugs them down, easing back to slowly work them off. He stands at the side of the bed, looming and large but Connor is far from afraid. There is a deep scar cutting across Hank's middle, shiny some from the oils in the bath. Connor wants to lave his tongue over it and memorize the taste and feeling, but they'll have time for that later.

A small smile tugs on Hank's mouth beneath his beard. "You look as if you've never laid eyes on another man before," he says, grinning again. Connor must be imagining the rosy flush on the tips of his ears and nose.  
  
"Not one like you," he says, parting his legs in invitation. Hank chuckles but his grin doesn't falter, hand reaching for one of Connor's stocking garters. He undoes the satin bow and rolls the silk down his knee, taking Connor's slim ankle in hand to lift his leg up.

"Soft as a dove," he murmurs, tickling Connor's calf with a whiskery kiss. The other stocking joins its mate on the floor but Hank's attention never strays, still busy kissing his way down the inside of Connor's leg.

Before his mouth reaches the thatch of soft curls there he stops, delighting in Connor's frustrated groan. "Later, sweet boy," he promises.

Hank's knee presses into the feather mattress as he climbs back into bed, sliding easily between the spread of Connor's thighs. He braces himself on strong arms above him, damp waves hanging so they just barely tickle Connor's face. The weight of his hips on Connor's pelvis is heady and dizzying and he needs so much more.

A pause, and one broad hand comes up to trace the freckled ridge of Connor's cheek, eyes searching for truth. "Do you have a French letter?" Hank says. "I would wear one if you asked.”  
  
Connor shakes his head, trembling. "I haven't any need for one," he says. "You wanted nothing between us."

"Nothing," Hank agrees, voice a low, silken sound in Connor's ear. They are strewn sideways across the soft bedding and Connor only looks up at him with hazy eyes, everything dreamlike in the dim light of the fire. Hank lowers his weight onto one elbow and eases Connor's thigh up.

When his fingers stroke against the wetness between Connor's legs he bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut. "Please," he breathes out, wanting so much more—Hank on top of him, inside him, all around him.  
  
"Please what, baby?" Hank asks, lips resting at the corner of Connor's mouth. His fingers prod deeper, working into that tight silken heat, spreading so Connor’s hole stretches around them.

"Fuck me," Connor gasps, though there's no bite in the words, all the usual hint of venom there bled dry. He swallows and tries again even if the true words elude him, gripping Hank's arms hard enough to bruise. "I—please, love me. Love me." His body sags in something like relief with the full admission of it.

Hank nods, petting Connor's curls back and gently shushing him when he hears the tremor in his voice. "I have you," he says, kissing him again before taking his cock in hand and pressing the head against Connor's entrance, both of them strung tight with anticipation. "I have you."

When Hank's thick cock finally slides into his body without resistance, Connor nearly cries out from the instant reprieve of being filled to the hilt. He inhales and clings to Hank's shoulders, already gently panting against his neck. "Oh," he says, relishing in the sweet stretch.

Hank groans but doesn't speak, lifting Connor's hips and curving over his body as he pulls back and then bottoms out again. The bed creaks beneath them as they rock together, Connor biting his own mouth swollen as Hank's weight presses him into the downy bedroll. Hank cradles Connor's face in one big hand, gently turning his jaw for another kiss.

Connor has never known a lover quite like this, who touched him with a tender hand, more intent on the giving than the taking. Hank is the first man to hold him up rather than break him apart, and if Connor had the presence of mind to marvel at that he would recognize it as a revelation nearly thirty years in the making.

When Hank takes a pink nipple in his mouth and grazes it with his teeth, Connor can't help but cry out unbidden. Hank's thrusts quicken but also deepen at the sound, slamming into Connor's body until his lower belly is pooling with warm pleasure, slowly building up to a cresting peak. Some of the girls have spoken of being truly pleasured by a man before, rare as it was—and even Connor's sister had spoken of her own wedding night before they'd parted years ago, hushed and giggling. But Connor has never known pleasure like this unless it was by his own hand, and certainly not at the hands of such an attentive lover.

Will he ever have a wedding night of his own? Connor doesn't know. He hopes with some faded scrap of yearning, but perhaps this is the closest he'll ever get. Already a hundred times deflowered, doomed to see the inside walls of a prison, being fucked in a whore's bed for one last hurrah. But Hank doesn't make him feel like a common whore. No, not empty or a burned-out shell of a harlot—important. Alive.  
  
The tears come but do not fall, and Connor is thankful for that last thread of humility, even as he’s held together in the embrace of Hank's arms. He will not cry, and he doesn't, but Hank’s movements slow all the same.

"What’s wrong?" He has no right to sound so sincere and tender, this stranger of a man who walked in from the desert covered in dust and sweat. He thumbs at the corner of Connor's eye, waiting. "Connor."

It’s the first time he has uttered Connor's chosen name aloud, and this time the tears do fall.

Maybe there is dignity even in gentle defeat, Connor thinks. He doesn't know how to express the feelings swelling in his chest to Hank—perhaps spoken word wouldn't do it justice. He finds his voice and urges Hank along with his hands and hips.

"Don’t stop," he pleads through tears. Hank doesn't, but his quick thrusts from before spin out into something mellower, shallow and slow as he lowers himself and so sweetly pulls Connor's body close so they fit together. This is the kind of coupling the romantic poets wrote about, maybe, before people averted their eyes to the beauty of it by way of seeking false modesty. There is nothing inherently crude in fucking, Connor thinks—not like this, when his entire being feels so wonderfully aflame.

Then Hank's thumb is at his sex, rubbing Connor along with each roll of his hips, sending wave after wave crashing along that impossible crest again. Connor comes with a stifled cry pressed in the junction between Hank's neck and shoulder, shaking apart in his arms while Hank chases release. There is no hurry in his movements as he gets a hand under Connor's ass to settle himself into the cradle of his hips, fucking into him with deep pistons of his hips that punch the air out of Connor's lungs. Again and again and again while Connor's blunt nails press delicate half-moons into his skin.

"Let go," he whispers into Hank's hair, fingers strayed to an old bullet wound on his back and the crude X-shape where somebody carved it out with a heated blade. "I have you now."

Hank grunts and stiffens, taut muscles unfurling as his body finally breaks and gives in to pleasure. His cock pulses deep inside Connor's body and he gives a few last feeble ruts for good measure, fucking into the sticky heat of his own release. "Oh, darlin'," Hank pants, body heavy where it slumps onto Connor's in the soft bedding. "Oh honey, you're better than any fever dream."

They lay panting together, undone, shadows dancing across their skin from the fire. It is a cool night in the desert but there is only warmth here in this bed. Connor wraps his legs around Hank tighter than before, not wanting him to pull away, not wanting the night to end. Even when Hank's spent cock slips free and the wetness blooms between them, they don’t untangle themselves from each other.  
  
"Stay," Connor whispers, just one word. He doesn't trust himself to say anything else.  
  
"You know I can't," Hank tells him softly, kissing Connor's eyelids. Dawn is still hours away and they’ll use the time they've been given, sleeping only fleetingly, waking together so Hank can take Connor again and again with his hands, his clever mouth, his heavy cock.

Perhaps, Connor thinks, he's been gifted with a husband's reverence after all. If only for one night.

  
  
  
  
  
When milky blue daylight finally breaks Connor steels himself and doesn't shed any more tears. They rise and wash themselves with cold water from the small pitcher and basin, dressing together in silence, Hank's strong fingers doing up the laces on Connor's girdle before he leans in to drop a gentle kiss at the pale nape of his neck.

Connor escorts Hank downstairs for coffee and breakfast, as is his usual custom with patrons. Hank's hand is light but warm at his elbow, his whole body smelling of worn leather and the faint smell of dust and horsehair soaked down deep into his coat. At the foot of the stairs the town's sheriff is waiting, eyebrow arched, shackles hanging idly in hand.

"You’re wanted for murder in cold blood," the sheriff says simply. There’s still a dark stain on the floorboards from where Connor shot and killed a man the evening before. "You’re lucky we don't hang women in this town."

"And _you’re_ lucky I was just escorting the murderer out myself," Hank cuts in sharply, flashing the star on his Texas Ranger badge. "I believe my jurisdiction overrules here, sheriff, in light of your absence yesterday. He’ll face fair trial and federal judge in a court of law."  
  
Connor's blood runs colder than ice. The sheriff opens his mouth to argue, but Hank simply stomps past him with Connor still in tow. "Make way," he says roughly, one hand resting on the loaded gun at his hip in warning. "I have other affairs outside this one-horse shithole town."

Hank makes quick work of saddling Sumo in the stables, wasting no time with taking Connor by the waist and boosting him up to sit behind the saddle. He gets a foot in the stirrup and swings up himself, turning to look over his shoulder at Connor with a wily grin.

"Where to?" he says with a wink, and suddenly all Connor’s haunts and troubles have thawed and melted away.

Connor wraps his arms around his Ranger's waist and holds on, burying his nose in the hair gathered at Hank's nape to breathe a sigh of relief. "Anywhere but here," he says, thinking back to Hank's words from last night.  
  
They strike out across the desert with only the wind behind them.  
  
  


* * *  
  
  


  
In El Paso they stop and spend the night at an old inn, weary from the beating sun and saddle sore.

Hank wraps his coat around Connor's shoulders and gently bids him to stay in the room for an hour or two while he runs a few errands in town. He comes back before dusk with a bundle and paper sack that contains a fresh change of clothes made for a man, a pair of new boots, a brimmed hat, and some shears he borrowed off the landlady. Connor throws his stockings and pantaloons into the fire and cuts off most of his hair save for the shortest curls on top, watching as it all pools on the floor around his bare feet.

"A fine enough job for now," Hank says with a soft laugh, kissing the top of Connor's head. "Next time we'll visit the barber, I think." Connor looks at himself in the mirror, touching the shorter ringlets. Even as a fugitive wanted for murder he has never felt so light and free.

He wraps his chest with strips of soft linen and walks at Hank's side in town as an equal, head held high, and in the morning there is a surprise waiting in the stall next to Hank's big pinto horse. A black and white mare, stout in stature but sturdy, a wild thing pulled in off the plains as a foal. Connor kisses the white star on her forehead and names her Blackbird. He kisses Hank, too, there in the stables, hidden behind the wide brim of his hat.

Connor already knows how to shoot, but under Hank's tutelage his aim becomes good enough to be a full reckoning. Hank himself is knocked speechless sometimes when Connor picks off a tin can on a fence post at forty yards—the shot made over his shoulder with one eye squinted shut.

He never does become a true lawman, but he rides at Hank's right-hand side nonetheless. People talk, like they always do, about the dark-haired slip of a man with Ranger Anderson who can shoot a silver dime out of the sky and have six men dead before the pieces even hit the ground. Dangerous, mysterious, and certainly not one to be crossed.

They get into a few close scrapes as the years go by, and Hank finally retires six months after his 48th birthday when he loses his right eye to shrapnel in a firefight. There are only so many gifted years in a man's life, and Hank wants to spend the rest of them with Connor.

And so there’s a little farm in Oklahoma, abandoned now, long since bought but empty now that Connor's parents are dead and buried. His father's surname is on the deed and they take it back for a little less than two hundred dollars, all the signatures made in Connor’s own hand. He hasn't set foot there in nearly twenty years but the dead place comes back to life under his care and Hank's added touch.

They plant a garden full of flowers in the spring and sow gourds and beans and pumpkins in the fall. Sumo retires out to pasture with Blackbird and the cows and Hank has his chickens he feeds every morning, talking to them like fine town ladies, hens named Ruth and Rose and Eleanor.

Hank and Connor go up to bed each night together without worry, holding each other close in the pale country moonlight. When Hank wakes up one morning and asks Connor to marry him, Connor thumps his shoulder and kisses him. "I would've married you the night we met.”

That spring Connor writes to his sister using the last known address he memorized for her husband's house a decade ago. Within three weeks a letter comes back from Natalia A. Reed, and two weeks after that Natalia and her husband arrive on a train from New York City. Natalia was always the more fine-looking between the two of them, Connor thinks, hugging his sister tightly and watching her usually shrewd blue eyes fill with tears. Reed is a city slicker, never set foot out west in his life, and he and Hank tend to move around each other like old fighting dogs.

The wedding is small but legitimate; not many people know of Connor's past and he and Hank want to keep it that way. Hank's long-time friend, Ben Collins—pastor and officiant—marries them in their back garden on a spring afternoon with Natalia and Gavin there as witnesses. Connor kisses his new husband full on the mouth, the two of them grinning so hard their teeth nearly clack together, and wears his new gold band with pride.

That night after supper when Natalia and Gavin have retired to their room, Hank takes Connor upstairs and undresses him, reverently undoing slacks and an ironed shirt this time in lieu of a girdle. Perhaps, Connor thinks, this is his second wedding night—the first was six years ago in a whore's bed, but now he's here in his own home, married, caught up once again in the unending depth of Hank's gentleness and devotion as they make love, not that it ever once strayed or waned.

And maybe Hank's thinking of that night as well because when they're wrapped around each other, joined and shuddering in the dark, he says for the first time in many years, "I have you."  
  
Connor kisses his lips and the scars at Hank's brow, knowing what it means. "And I have you."  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being so patient while I took a literal age to update this! Had to take a break to focus on some other projects and get those wrapped up.
> 
> Just another small disclaimer in case you missed the first one: this chapter is all about Hank and Connor starting a family together. There’s sex, love, angst, loss, and birth along the way. Connor does experience menstrual cycles and a miscarriage. Near the end of part 2 there is a semi-graphic birth scene; Connor also nurses his children briefly, but then finds more comfortable alternative means for the future. 
> 
> This work has been beta read and peer reviewed by a trans man (thank you, Rox!) and is probably best suited for trans guys who may one day like to carry their own bio children, or at least folks who are comfortable with the idea in general. Please, if you experience personal dysphoria related to PIV sex, pregnancy, or chestfeeding, I strongly advise you don’t read further. Thank you so much for your consideration.

  
  
During Hank's time as a ranger, Connor never once left his side, riding in and out of every township, forever sleeping in the same room or under the same starry sky on their bedrolls. Nobody thought to question the bond between a lawman and his trusted sharpshooter who may as well have been a deputy; if they did, they risked facing down the barrel of a gun.

They’re careful during their years crisscrossing the country as they relentlessly hunt down outlaws through the deserts and plains, using preventative measures more often than not. It’s far unlike that first night they spent together in the saloon, and Connor always misses the feeling of Hank finding release inside him, but it's something made necessary. Facing the facts for what they are, it simply wouldn't do to have a pregnant right-hand man tearing across the land on horseback with a six shooter in hand.

More importantly than that, Connor has a dangerous reputation and an image to upkeep. He’s something of a legend, after all—a man people talk about behind their hands and in low whispers when they see Ranger Anderson and Connor Arkait ride into town.

Six years go by without a child and it’s a small miracle, really, considering how often and readily Hank will take Connor whenever and wherever he can, fucking into him at any opportunity they can steal together. There are times where Connor idly wonders in the back of his mind if he's barren. His cycle comes and goes some months but not others, made unpredictable and inconsistent by hard living on the road.

But once those six years are behind them and Hank loses his eye and they retire to the farm in Oklahoma, things change. Suddenly life isn't so dangerous anymore and the stakes aren't so high. Old habits are hard to break, but Connor can do as he pleases now on his own property without any neighbors or rogues running around for miles. He maintains his identity because it's who he is now and who he’ll always be, but other times he still....wonders.

Is he truly barren, or has their rigid carefulness simply paid off after so many years? Here on the farm there's nothing to hide from and nobody to shoot at but the birds pecking tomatoes in the garden. It’s a safe and beautiful place to raise a child; Connor grew up here himself once upon a time.

In spring the heifers calve, the bees buzz, and the barn cat has her litter of kittens nested in Hank's long johns drawer. He fusses but leaves her and her babies be, checking in on them from time to time and even leaving a saucer of cream nearby when he thinks Connor isn’t looking.

The world is blooming with new life and Connor begins to ache for it, too. It’s an unexpected feeling he never prepared to experience in his lifetime; it certainly never crept up on him like this before. But watching Hank in the early mornings, being held in his strong arms, loving his gentle nature, knowing that with every passing year they both get older…

Connor doesn't know how to ask or broach the subject. They’ve simply never spoken about children, but Hank has always been good with them—buying pocket candy for the small ones in towns they pass through, teaching others fisherman knots and playing tic-tac-toe games in the dirt.

Early one morning before the new day rises, Hank's weight is pressing Connor down into their bed. He’s on his back, enjoying the lazy rhythm of Hank's hips, sleepy and warm under his husband's body. It’s good, just like it always is, but when Hank goes to pull out Connor firmly grips his upper arms and stops him. It’s easier to wrap his legs around Hank's hips and pull him in deeper than to speak the truth aloud in their shadowed room. Hank's good eye finds Connor's, a faint line drawn between his brows, but Connor urges him along.

"I want you to," he whispers. "Please."

Hank doesn't speak, only fucks Connor into the mattress with their mouths crushed together until Connor's crying out and Hank's spilling deep inside him, so much so that it leaks down Connor's inner thighs when he stands.  
  
Lying together in bed afterward, Hank holds Connor close in the circle of his arms and asks, "What changed?"

It takes a few moments for Connor to find his voice, nestled there against Hank's warm side. "Have you ever wanted to have a family?" he asks softly. "With me."   
  
Hank stills, gone quiet. "I never knew you wanted for one," he says. And then, "I'd give you anything, Connor."

Connor laces their fingers together on Hank's chest, content to just lay there and feel his heart steadily beating against the pulse in his own wrist. There is love in this home they rebuilt together, and laughter, and enough bounty to be comfortable. He has everything he wants or needs, but there is one more thing they could try for. Just one last thing, maybe, if Connor's lucky enough to be so blessed after a hard life.   
  
"I want to give you children," he tells Hank, whole body electrified with the admission of it. "I want us to try."

Hank only holds Connor tightly, the line of his throat working in place. "I'm not a young man anymore," he murmurs, and Connor feels his heart drop and ache in the following moment of silence. "But it would be a gift to me, more than you'd know, if you gave us a child."

It's a beautiful relief, Connor thinks, to be whoever you want to be and still live your life as you wish it. The freedom to choose is at his fingertips, and he chooses Hank and whatever future they may build together. He doesn't pray, necessarily, but he certainly hopes.

From that moment on they are nothing if not insatiable—every idle moment away from working in the garden or tending the animals is spent fucking whenever and wherever the fancy takes them. Bent over the kitchen table before breakfast, against a stall door in the barn, Hank on his back while Connor rides him with radiant eyes and his strong thighs.

Within a month Connor's cycle fails to come, far too late now to be a simple fluke, and he knows that something has taken inside him. Two weeks later he wakes early only to lean over the side of the bed and promptly empty his stomach into the porcelain chamber pot, overrun with a wave of nausea. When he's finished being ill, he sits up to find Hank there with a damp cloth and a questioning look on his face, looking far younger than he has in a long time even without his eye patch in place.

He dabs at Connor's temples and face with care, though his hands tremor with nerves. "Is it...?" Hank starts, seemingly unsure of himself for perhaps the first time since Connor's known him. "Are you?"   
  
Connor's cotton nightshirt is damp with sweat but he smiles and leans into Hank's arms, head resting against his husband's shoulder. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I think so."

They laugh together, breathless and happy, Hank kissing Connor's face as he holds him close and doesn't let go. They fall back into bed again, moving slowly, Hank's broad hand briefly resting at Connor's stomach on its way to cup around the dip of his back.

Connor puts in a catalog order for some books about the human body and what happens during a pregnancy, and within three weeks they're delivered in a crate at the post office in town. He reads voraciously, eagerly—trying to learn anything and everything his mother never taught him before she died.

The morning sickness is the worst of it for the next month and the only noticeable sign anything has changed. His body looks the same as it always did, a taut flat belly, brown and freckled where the sun kisses his arms and face. There’s a new tenderness in his chest but only something faint, barely there.

Connor stops taking the occasional swig off the moonshine jug and steers clear of Hank when he's out on the porch smoking his pipe. Eats fresh veggies from the garden and goes to bed at a reasonable hour. Simple things, he supposes, that may help his baby stay healthy and strong. Hank is as loving and attentive as ever, if not more—shooing Connor out of the barn when it's time to muck stalls and insisting he doesn't climb up too far into the hay loft anymore.

Connor, despite his own headstrong ways, lets himself be coddled from time to time; he does adore Hank's attention.   
  
On another spring day, two months after the morning sickness first began, Connor awakes early with a start. There’s sticky wetness all between his thighs and under his bottom, not unlike a surprise start to his cycle but so much worse than he usually expects. Confused and with a pounding heart, he brings his shaking fingers up to find they're bloody.

Connor doesn't even realize he'd screamed Hank’s name until his husband is sitting up in a rush, blinking blearily with one hand already halfway to his gun until his eyes land on the dark blood in the sheets and low on Connor's nightshirt.

"Connor?" he croaks. "God, what happened?"

Connor bleeds through the morning as Hank rides into town to fetch Mrs. Collins and bring her back with her medical kit. They stand at the porch steps as she listens to Hank’s hushed explanation, voice low and abnormally afraid.

"Take me to him," is all she says, already rolling up her sleeves as they climb the stairs.

Mrs. Collins cleans Connor up and quietly examines him, then sits at the bedside and gently touches the back of his hand. "Sometimes these things happen, dear," she says, watching the color drain from his face with sadness pulling around her kind eyes. "You couldn't have helped it—it befalls most of us early on. I'm so sorry."

Once Ben arrives in his wagon to take Lydia home, Hank goes back upstairs to be with Connor. He doesn't know what to say or do or how to help; tears streak Connor's face and drip off his chin as he sobs himself hoarse. They lay in bed on top of the quilt together until the sun goes down.

Connor spends most of the next few days in bed, hardly eating and barely drinking. Hank brings him soup and bread and even a few pieces of chocolate, begging him to take something for his strength, but Connor doesn't have the stomach for it. He feels weak, broken—betrayed and abandoned by his own body.

Hank brings flowers in from the garden and leaves them on the night table before going back out to work in the field, kissing Connor's hair before he goes. The barn cat slinks in through the window a while later, dropping a single perfect mockingbird egg into the sheets from her mouth.

They are trying to help him, bringing gifts and tokens out of love. But Connor doesn't know if he'll ever feel whole again—or if he does, it will take some time. Even so, he cradles the mockingbird egg in his hand and finally walks downstairs for the first time in days, going barefoot out to the garden to try and find its nest.

Days go by, then weeks. Connor's body recovers more quickly than his heart, but he tries to be better, if more for Hank than himself. The first time Hank goes to gently touch between Connor's thighs, intent on making him feel good, Connor crumbles and weeps in his arms. Hank understands; patient as ever, kind, only petting Connor's hair while he cries it out. It’s not Hank's fault and Connor tells his husband as much, hiccupping against his chest. Part of him wants to make love again, so desperately....but the other part is still afraid.

The next morning Connor rises early of his own volition and goes out to the barn to slip a bridle over Blackbird's head. He swings up onto her bareback and lights out across the rolling pasture, galloping so fast the wind brings tears to his eyes, running until they run out of the sprawl of open land. At the end of their property he slides off her back and slumps into the grass, breathing hard, face chafed and stinging from the wind.

Connor lays there and cries some more in big gulping sobs until there's salt tracks dried on his cheeks. Blackbird never wanders far, occasionally bumping her soft nose against his shoulder while she crops at the tall grass and peacefully grazes. Hours seem to pass until the sun has vaulted to the other side of the sky, and eventually Connor climbs back up on his faithful little mare and heads toward home.

From the top of the highest hill he can see Hank, tiny as an ant in the distance, standing on the porch as he waits. Suddenly Connor has never wanted to be in his husband’s arms more than he does right now.

After Blackbird is watered and cooled down and Connor has no tears left to cry for what feels like the next hundred years, he slips back into the house to find Hank at the stove, making Connor's favorite apple cinnamon flapjacks while he whistles some old tune. He doesn't start when he hears Connor's boots on the floorboards, only holds out his free arm and pulls him close there in front of the stove while the flapjacks sizzle on the griddle.

"You alright?" he asks gently, nose at Connor's temple.   
  
"I will be," Connor says. He knows that much is certain.

Spring gives way to summer and in turn summer begins to wane, August slowly unfurling toward the start of September. The days are still warm but the nights are cool enough that Connor puts the thick quilt on their bed, knowing they’ll need to add more as the weather grows colder. Hank turns 52 on the 6th, quietly grateful for another year with Connor.

Things are mostly back to normal—at least, as normal as the lingering pull of grief allows them to be.

Connor feels like he's in limbo sometimes; there was never any body to mourn, but he still lost their baby and yearns for what may have been. He plants lilies in the garden for the unnamed child and tends them each morning. Hank never pushes, prods, or asks about children. Connor almost wants him to if only to know that he's still thinking of what they lost, to hear it aloud.

They rut like wild animals some nights and then lay wrapped around each other on others, and that, at least, is back to normal. As summer dies and the last of the vegetables are pulled from the garden, only the ripening pumpkins are still left on their vines. There’s less work to do under the beating sun and Hank comes into the bedroom one morning with a basket and an old blanket folded over his arm.

"What are you up to, Mr. Anderson?" Connor asks, eyeing Hank's loose shirt and slacks, barefoot on the hardwood. An unusual sight except for when they're in bed together.   
  
"I think it's a goddamn beautiful day for a picnic," Hank says, winking before holding out a hand. "C'mon, sugar."

Sure as the world, Hank's packed them up a little hamper of cold cuts and cheese he ordered special from the deli in town. There are sliced apples and tinned tomatoes, and some lady finger sandwiches with blackberry jam smeared inside. They drink cold lemonade and sit under the shade of a sprawling oak tree, talking and teasing. After lunch they spread out on the blanket and stare up at the swaying branches, sunlight dappling down on their skin through the leaves.

Connor turns on his side and tucks himself into the crook of Hank's arm, nose pressed into the clean smell of his shirt and warm skin. Despite the years gone by they are both so different but also the same.

Connor's hair has grown a bit longer than he used to keep it when they were chasing outlaws through the desert, soft curls falling over his forehead now. Hank's gentle eyes crinkle more than they ever did before, hair more silver than that older mixture of honey and steel. Connor reaches up to lightly trace the worst of the shrapnel scars on his brow, having long since memorized the raised skin by touch. A pair of mourning doves chatter somewhere nearby, dark-eyed, tender and easy to startle. They bring to mind the memory of Hank's lips at his calf.

"Do you remember," Connor murmurs, fingertips still brushing over Hank's closed lids, "when you told me I was brighter than a desert star?"

"Mmhm," Hank hums, a low sound in his chest. "It still holds true. And more handsome than any desert rose to boot."

Connor wrinkles his nose and laughs, though it's all too easy to slip back into the moment from that night. The passion, the depth of what they'd found together despite being near-strangers. He sobers some at the thought, perhaps in awe of it even years later. Like an old dream.

"I trusted you even then," Connor whispers. "I'd never felt so safe with—anybody, ever since I was a child." He doesn't quite know why he's saying all this; it's hard to put emotions into spoken word sometimes. "You loved me like we'd known each other our whole lives."

Hank is quiet, breathing evenly. "Maybe we had," he says eventually. It’s the closest thing to a faith in something other than the long road ahead Connor's ever heard come from his mouth. The notion makes him dizzy.

"Maybe we had," Connor agrees, and then slowly sits up. He raises himself and straddles across Hank's thighs to slowly undo his belt. When Hank's eyes open and he moves to sit up Connor only gently presses him back down, one palm flat on his chest. "Let me," he says, palming Hank's cock through his slacks, already beginning to fill with want.

Shimmying out of his own pants, Connor tosses them aside and looms there above Hank is nothing but his cotton shirt. He pulls Hank's cock out and strokes it from base to tip, twisting on the upstroke the way he knows Hank likes. His heart thuds, the place between his legs throbbing with each beat.

Hank groans, still lying flat on his back. "Oh baby,” he hisses, relaxing into the touch. “That's real good."

There's nobody out here but the two of them and the birds and the wind carding its fingers through the trees. If the all-seeing eyes of god are real, Connor thinks, then they'll simply have to sit back and watch. Connor takes Hank's thick cock in hand and aligns himself, raising up and sinking back down with some effort until the full length is sheathed inside him. His palms splay flat on Hank's belly as he adjusts to his husband's size. It burns for just a moment, a tight pinch of pain come and gone that eventually unfurls into something else.

Sitting flush on Hank's pelvis, Connor doesn't know if he's ever had Hank this deep inside before. His thighs are already quivering, stomach drawn tight, but every primal instinct he has tells him to _move_. Hank's big hands settle on his hips and guide him, familiar and soothing.

Connor doesn't have the means to bounce on Hank's lap here, the hard ground already biting into his knees beneath their thin picnic blanket. He leans forward and braces his hands on either side of Hank's head, looking down into his eyes, and slowly rolls back on his cock. He sinks down to the base and slides back off again even while his muscles tremble, letting the flushed tip of Hank's erection slide through the wetness between his folds before fucking himself back on it again.

Hank grunts like a wounded bull but lays there and lets Connor move, hand wrapped around the hilt to keep it aligned with Connor’s slick hole. “Look at you," he rasps, bringing one hand up to touch the side of Connor's face, then his temple where a curl has fallen. "My desert star."   
  
Connor keens out some low, broken sound himself, losing enough stride that Hank's cock slips free and leaves him painfully empty. He goes to take his husband’s shaft in hand again but Hank pulls his knees up and takes Connor around the back of the neck, pulling him down into a bruising kiss. He sits up with some effort, cradling Connor's head as he lowers him back onto the blanket, briefly admiring the shine of wetness between his legs.

Hank only yanks his pants down to his thighs before he's pushing back into the slick heat of Connor's body, slow and easy. The weight of his stomach rucks Connor's shirt up his belly and Hank kisses like he's breathing, hitching Connor's thigh up around his hips. When it's like this, when he can let go of his own careful control, Connor isn't aware of anything but Hank. Hank above him, inside him, all around him at once in a singular endless instant. The sun is warm on their skin and the ground is hard against his back but this is the only thing that matters.

Hank fucks into him relentlessly, thrusts measured and deep like it's the only thing he knows how to do. He curves a strong forearm under Connor's lower back and bends him at the waist, cock slamming into his hole again and again until Connor's shoulders ache, pressed into the unforgiving ground.

Connor can hear himself chanting Hank's name, something far-off and distant even to his own ears. Their punishing pace slows and Hank's lips are back for a sweet kiss, grazing Connor's mouth while he pants between them.

"Tell me what you want, darlin'," he says. "Anything."

What Connor's mending heart yearns for comes to him in an instant—selfish, foolish maybe, but oh, how he still wants to try. He takes Hank's face between his hands, lashes dipping wetly before he can speak again, mouthing the words against Hank's jaw. "Give me our baby."

Hank nods, nose skimming across Connor's cheek as he moves to press their foreheads together. "I want to, sweetheart," he says hoarsely, reaching up to swipe his thumb under Connor's eye. Maybe both their faces are wet now or maybe that's a trick of the light. And then, more resolute, Hank kisses him again and makes his decision. "I will."

Time seems to stand still for a while for the two of them, sheltered beneath the old craggy oak tree and hidden by tall grass. Connor can do nothing, really, but cling to Hank and let him carry them both, the sensation of being held so strong he forgets he's lying on the ground. Connor's never seen much of the world, but maybe this is what he's read about in books: sand dunes merging in the desert, waves colliding from two different oceans, forces of nature bleeding into another since the beginning of everything.

This time, even with Hank so deep inside him, perhaps he does send up some silent prayer. Hank brings off Connor before he allows himself to break, hand caught between them, stroking until Connor cries out against his neck. Steady thrusts turn jagged, then frantic, and with Connor's walls still pulsing around him Hank plunges his cock in to the hilt one more time and finally lets go.

This is the moment Connor wants to live in forever—his husband utterly consumed, his weight heavy and comforting where he's slumped on top of Connor long enough to catch his breath. The feeling of Hank's cock twitching inside him, filling him up in pearly spurts, the messy warmth of it all. Only when Hank's spend is leaking between Connor's thighs does he pull out with a groan, though he doesn't move away or flop over onto his back.

His beard scratches Connor's belly as he plants a kiss to the trembling softness there, fingers dipping lower again to Connor's hole. The two middle fingers on his left hand dip inside, pressing his spend further into Connor's body while the rest of his hand cups his mound, gentle, reverent. Connor can feel the heat of Hank's ring at his entrance, a hot pinch of gold.

He whines at the sensation, overwhelmed. "Hank, please," Connor croaks, wanting to pull him up for another kiss but not wanting to lose the feeling of Hank's fingers still inside him. "I need you."   
  
Hank takes his time kissing up Connor's belly, then on his sternum where his shirt has ridden up to expose the linen wrapped around his chest. "I'm here," he says. His hand still between Connor's thighs, Hank steals another kiss, chaste and tender, before lying there at his husband's side. He rests his head on Connor's chest and works his fingers inside his body, caressing the soft spot that makes Connor gasp and clench around him.

His second climax is less vivid than the first but feels like it sinks into his bones. Connor grabs Hank's wrist and squirms while Hank strokes him through it, smiling while Connor's narrow hips buck up for more. When his fingers finally slip free neither one of them can move. Despite how disheveled they both are, Hank only pulls one side of the blanket up over them, tucking Connor close against his side. They can clean up later, and will, but for now there's no need to do anything at all but lay together in the shade and drift as the autumn day goes by.

"I love you," Connor whispers, soft enough that it almost floats away on the gentle breeze. "Thank you."   
  
Hank hums, bringing Connor's hand up to his mouth to brush a whiskery kiss across his knuckles. "Do you think we'll have a boy or a girl?" he asks.

"It won't matter to me," Connor answers, smiling even through an old shade of sadness. There’s another lump in his throat, tight and aching. "So long as I get to hold my baby."

"I know you will, sweetheart," Hank tells him, squeezing his hand, and this time Connor believes it.  
  


* * *  
  
  


The leaves slowly start to change, all the acreage around the house going crimson and yellow as things slowly wither and die. It haunts Connor in a way, watching everything shrivel away in the freeze. He touches his flat stomach, terrified, and waits for any sign of blood with his breath held.

Within a month their newfound fortune sprouts up through the death overtaking the valley, clear in the cards as autumn swings her scythe: Connor misses his monthly, and within a fortnight the sickness overtakes him again.

He’s never been so relieved to vomit acid until he's hoarse in all his life. Hank is skittish and careful, touching Connor like he's made of spun sugar at times. The haunting fear hangs on him as well, and even the barn cat slips in through the window some mornings to curl up against Connor's middle and purr. He pets her while Hank softly snores, staring out the window at the overcast sky.

Mrs. Collins comes around every week to check in, looking at Connor with thinly veiled sorrow in her eyes. She always brings something to eat—cornbread, buttermilk, jams, cured bacon. It isn't until the week Connor eats half of her apple pie by himself that laughter seems to return to the house.

Three months after his last cycle, Connor knows he's finally passed the moment where he lost their first baby. He wakes up every morning thereafter afraid he'll have soaked the sheets with blood overnight, but the weeks pass and none ever comes.

Just before Christmas, on the winter solstice, his belly begins to grow.

It’s a small bump but unmistakable in its gentle roundness, and Hank touches it every chance he gets. In bed, when Connor's standing at the stove, when they're together on the porch swing watching the sun go down. Connor relishes in it and hopes the baby feels safe under their father's hands.

The first snow of the year was hardly more than sleet but the second big storm rages blinding white through the valley. Hank locks the hens, the horses, and the youngest cows in the barn and brings the cat back with him, wrapped up in his coat to keep her from fighting him the whole way. They put a heavy quilt palette down on the floor in front of the kitchen stove and make the small arrangements to sleep downstairs that night.

The cat laps at a saucer of cream and looks suspiciously content now that she's inside and warm; Connor strokes her soft calico side and wonders if she's expecting again, too. Hank spoons up close behind his back as they watch the kindling burn in the stove, hand automatically gone to splay around Connor's belly. Sleep doesn't come while the storm screams overhead, and Connor wiggles his ass back onto Hank's groin until he feels interest begin stirring there.

Hank groans and only tugs up Connor's long nightshirt, lifting his leg to push a thick thumb and then his cock inside that slick heat, already wet and waiting. It's slow, sensual, lazy lovemaking, and Connor could almost drift off with Hank's cock still inside him until Hank growls _all mine_ behind his ear as he shakes apart.

They sleep downstairs most of the winter after that, dragging a spare bedroll into the kitchen to keep warm and comfortable by the fire. In January Connor's pants won't button anymore and he takes to wearing Hank's clothes around the house when he isn't in a nightshirt and slippers, buttoned up into oversized slacks he cuffs at the ankle and flannels rolled up to the wrist.

Connor's belly seems to grow faster, even, than any of the diagrams in the books he ordered a year ago. He touches the month-by-month illustrations of nude figures, not mesmerized so much by their shapes but by the thought of his own body carrying a growing baby. The change is welcome only because he knows he's doing this for himself and Hank, bringing them a child they couldn't have otherwise.

He’s not in the eye of public danger anymore on the open road, and most days he doesn't bind his chest, the tenderness there making it sore to the touch. There are times when the ache and softness makes him irritable and cantankerous, stomping around the house with his gut poked out through his housecoat to lead the way, defiantly standing on the porch and squinting down the barrel of a pistol to shoot cans off the fence two and three at a time.

Some of that dissipates on the nights when Hank's rough but gentle hands massage him with rose oil made from their garden's flowers. It’s such delectable pampering in front of the warm stove that Connor can't help but melt, soothed and hushed, Hank's hands kneading his thighs, his belly, slowly working their way up to his chest. The heady smell of rosehip and Hank's pipe tobacco fills Connor's nose, a welcome comfort he’d needed.

At the start of Connor's sixth month the snow is mostly melted and spring seems to be on its way, heralded by the buttery sun doing its best to draw life back from the soil. The cat has only a single kitten this year in a padded box by the stove, pure white from the top of its head to the tip of its tail.

Hank has no living family left save for a few scattered distant cousins, some of which are still across the ocean in Scotland. Connor writes again to Natalia with the news now that he's nearly seven months gone, and her initial response is less than warm or congratulatory. He cries over the veiled resentment in her letter because it stings, but he also cries because Natalia was never able to have her own children despite a decade of trying. But Gavin never took a mistress and they travel often, she writes. _"I suppose children would have only ever tied us down.”_

Even so, two weeks later the postal service sends word that they've got a delivery from New York City for one Connor Anderson. Inside the box he finds a stuffed dog, a delightful set of colorful children's books, and a soft yellow blanket crocheted by hand. _"love from Aunt Nat"_ the small enclosed note reads.

Connor's belly continues to grow and the baby kicks often like it's doing somersaults from time to time. He feels short of breath but is thankful for whatever grief the child gives him so long as it's still moving around, responding in kind to his voice and movements.

It’s in that seventh month that Hank and Connor are lying in bed one morning, Connor on his side with his big belly nestled between them. Hank's pulled his nightshirt up to watch Connor’s taut stomach twitch beneath his palm, and once the baby shifts around his eyes widen and he laughs, bright and loud.

"This child is destined to be a tap dancer," Connor grouses, feeling like the baby is wedged in his rib cage, but when he looks down to see what Hank's laughing about they find not one, not two, but four little footprints pressing against the inside of his belly.  
  
Twins.

"Oh my lord," Connor gasps, hand flying up to his mouth. The tiny feet are smaller than Hank's thumb as he gently presses against them in awe, feeling his babies move. One foot disappears under his touch, ticklish, and when he looks back up at Connor his eyes are wet.

"I never would've thought..." Hank says, roughly clearing his throat. "Never in a million years did I think I'd live long enough to see something like this, much less deserve it."   
  
Connor kisses him, smiling through his own tears. "They love you already," he says. "Their papa."

The Collins's come over one Sunday for luncheon after church and Mrs. Collins laughs when she hears the news. "Double trouble," she says, waggling a finger in good humor at Connor, but then her expression turns serious. "In light of what was lost, I think you've been doubly blessed."

Connor waddles around the garden every morning, watering his flowers and paying special care to his lilies. The white kitten follows him about like a tiny shadow, pouncing and playing in the shrubbery, always begging to be held or petted. Hank calls her pipsqueak and Pippa is what sticks.

In the afternoons, Hank will come in for a sandwich and some lemonade and Connor will sit with him on the porch, drafting out lists of baby names in his notebook—anything and everything that comes to mind, the names of heroes and giants and places far away. He daydreams about whether they'll have two boys, two girls, or one of each.

The beginning of the eighth month arrives and Connor is quickly becoming restless, heavy and uncomfortable. Easter passes and takes the last of the cool weather with it and his back aches more often than not, strained under the weight of two growing babies. Hank will run him warm baths sometimes, heating kettles and pots of water on the stove. The washtub is downstairs and Connor will strip naked there by the hearth in the evenings, uncaring with only Hank there to see him. Sinking into the hot water feels like a dream, especially when Hank rolls his sleeves up and washes Connor's hair, strong fingers scrubbing gentle circles against his scalp.

When the water begins to cool Hank will help Connor stand, guiding him out of the bath and into a robe before they go upstairs for the night. Connor's too far along to pull Hank on top of him now, so he lays at the edge of the bed and parts his legs, sighing when Hank kneels there between his thighs and laps into the bittersweet heat, tonguing through his folds until Connor’s begging for the slide of his cock.

They both bask in the glow of these final weeks but there's an air of anxiety lingering there, too. Hank does some reading of his own and speaks to the doctor in town every time he's there. So much could go wrong, but Connor asks whoever's silently listening that it won't.

He and Hank aren't bad men, but they've lived hard lives and have seen plenty of bad men die along the way. Maybe they were criminals, the few who died at Connor's hand, but he lies awake sometimes wondering about their families. If they were loved. If they had children of their own, too.

In the second week of May they receive a telegram that there's another special delivery waiting for them at the train depot. Perplexed, Hank hitches up Sumo and Blackbird and takes the wagon into town, and upon arrival he finds Natalia and Gavin standing on the platform, waving and grinning like two clever loons.

Connor goes out onto the porch when he hears the horses trotting up the lane and nearly cries when he sees Natalia waving her blue handkerchief in the distance.   
  
"I knew you'd fight me if I warned you we were coming," Nat whispers, hugging Connor tight. "We’re here to help."

In the evenings Natalia and Connor will sit in the kitchen over tea and catch up on lost time, trying to remember what it felt like to be young. Their parents, the farm, the fraternal twin brother that was lost when he and Connor were only four months old—Silas Arkait. Hank and Gavin exchange few friendly words but spend their evenings out on the porch together, smoking their pipes and acclimating to each other out of necessity. Gavin chats with Pippa every morning while he drinks his coffee, sneaking her bits of sausage and bacon from the edge of his plate.

Connor wakes up on May 31st and goes downstairs in his nightshirt and robe, bleary-eyed and swollen, to start coffee for the others. As he's filling up the pot he feels something wet dribble and splatter around his feet, and when he looks down there's a puddle of clear fluid in the floor.

He wakes Hank, nerves fraught with shaky excitement and a tinge of unquenchable fear. Mrs. Collins is out of town with Ben on their visit to a neighboring parish, and going by the calendar the babies weren't meant to come until the third week of June at least.

Things progress unusually fast and Connor tries not to be afraid. The pains begin low in his back and pelvis within a couple hours, making him strain and pant through each long contraction. Natalia heats water and boils rags for lack of anything else to do, nervous and frazzled herself.

"We need the doctor, Hank," Connor groans from their bed, rending the sheets between his hands. He’s sweating, flushed and ruddy in the face, propped against the headboard while another wave of pain comes and goes. Hank shakes his head and climbs into bed, gently pulling Connor back against his chest so he doesn’t have to brace against the oaken headboard.

"I won't leave you here alone," he says, and even if he's afraid, too, his tone leaves no room for argument. "I'll send Gavin to town on Sumo."   
  
Natalia looks surprised when she comes in with a cool cloth for Connor's forehead. "I don't know if the husband should be here for—"

"I'm not going anywhere," Hank repeats, holding Connor's hands as he tenses and bears down, shaking with pain. Each contraction comes faster than before and when Natalia leaves the room, Connor finally breaks and sobs.

"It hurts so much," he gasps, slumping against his husband. " _Hank._ "

"Shh, honey, I know," Hank says, kissing his hair. "Listen to me—can you hold on? You’ve got to wait for the doctor."   
  
"I can't," Connor says through clenched teeth, breathing hard once the pain passes. "They’re coming, Hank. It’s time. Now, oh God, right now—"  
  
Connor groans like a wounded animal, his whole body bearing down like a clenched fist, and Hank's arms prickle with gooseflesh at the sight and sound of everything happening in slow motion. Without an ounce of shame he reaches down between Connor's thighs and tries not to sob when he touches the crown of his child's head.

"You’re right, sweetheart," he says breathlessly, kissing Connor's temple. "Soon, I think. You’re almost there."   
  
Hank yells for Natalia and she comes back up the stairs in a rush, wild-eyed and pale.   
  
"Get a blanket ready," he says firmly. "You’ll have to play catch."

Natalia's barely at the end of the bed when Connor brings the first baby into the world, waiting until it's crying in Natalia's hands before he slumps back against Hank and cries.

"Oh, Hank," he keeps saying, watching as his sister rubs the tiny human clean. "Our baby. Our baby."

The umbilical cord is still attached but the infant is pink and squalling, healthy and already a clear fighter. "A girl," Natalia says, tearful herself, and Hank smiles until his face hurts.

"Wrap my girl up for now," he says, feeling Connor go rigid against him again. "The second's ones coming soon."

"I don't know if I can," Connor says weakly, hands clenching feebly at Hank's knees. He looks faint and far-off, all the pinkness gone from his cheeks.   
  
"You can," Hank says, brushing curls out of Connor's eyes. "You have to, honey, and then you'll be done. Then you can rest."

Tears streak down Connor's face as he trembles in Hank's arms, already exhausted now that the first wave of adrenaline is gone. Their daughter has quieted some now, patiently waiting for her twin, and with another push, then two, a second baby tumbles headfirst into their lives.

Natalia catches this one with more finesse, already an old pro, and holds up a squirming child with a head full of dark hair for Hank and Connor to see. "A little boy," she says, grinning.

Connor smiles feebly and closes his eyes, reaching behind him to touch Hank's jaw with shaking fingers as the little boy lets out a piercing wail. "Let me hold them," he asks as Natalia drapes a sheet over his legs for modesty until the doctor arrives. "Let me see my babies."

Hank stays where he is, keeping Connor held up against him while Natalia lays a pillow across his lap.

"You did it," Hank whispers into Connor's ear. "So strong for us, Connor. The strongest man I’ve ever known."   
  
"Only because you were with me," Connor says, smiling as he feels Hank's kiss under his ear. "I needed you."

Natalia brings the baby girl over first and then her brother, carefully nestling them in Connor's lap. They’re both quieter now if still a little pinched in the face, and so small that Hank could hold one in each hand. Connor touches their tiny features and tries not to weep.

"They're beautiful," he says, and indeed Hank has never seen such handsome children in all his years, but maybe he's just a little bit biased.

The boy is dark-headed, the girl with wispy curls that are still damp but obviously fairer. The babies curl toward each other even now that they're outside the womb, reaching to one another for familiar comfort and closeness. The girl has a birthmark around the curve of her right shoulder—strange but not garish, a patch of lighter skin that crawls over her chest and back. Connor knows she is perfect all the same.   
  
"What should we name them?" Hank asks, swiping a thumb across his son's forehead.

"I want to wait until we know them better," Connor decides, and just then they hear the clatter of hooves as Gavin and the good doctor come storming up the lane on horseback. He smiles and falls back against Hank again, content to simply rest for now. "They only just got here."

Doctor Manfred, better late than never, snips the babies' umbilical cords and takes care of the rest, looking Connor and each infant over in the upstairs bedroom while the last of May's sunlight filters in.

"Perfectly done," he tells them, shaking Hank’s hand in congratulations. "I couldn't have made a better delivery myself."

Natalia and Gavin bring supper and some supplies for the newborns up and then leave the new parents alone, retreating downstairs for the evening. Connor's still too weak to get out of bed but Hank's perfectly content to stay there with him, both marveling at the little lives they made and brought into their home.   


  
  


  
As dusk falls in the evening, they light the kerosene lamp and sit up with the babies, unable to do much of anything but touch them while they sleep.

Connor's chest is sore and he knows it can't be helped for now despite the discomfort, so he holds their daughter close while Hank cradles the boy and patiently helps her latch on. She’s strong, eager to eat, and the longer she nurses the more at-ease Connor feels as the painful tightness recedes.

Hank watches on in awe and reverently touches the back of the infant's head while she's cradled close to Connor's chest. "She's already strong like her daddy," Hank observes. "With a trigger finger just as fast, I bet," he adds with a chuckle, watching the baby's tiny hand curl around his pinky finger.

Their son is sleeping but wakes when Hank passes him into Connor's arms to nurse, far more quiet and subdued than the girl—a gentle spirit like his papa. They sleep lightly the first night, changing cloth diapers and shushing cries. Hank carries the babies around the room in shifts, singing soft little tunes to them as Connor rests and watches on from their bed.

He was right from the beginning; Hank is a wonderful husband, and maybe an even better father than that.

"I'll get a nanny goat," Hank tells Connor in the morning while the babies nurse: he's bleary-eyed and tired but happy. "Let her worry about feeding these voracious children already intent on sucking us dry." It's something said in good humor, but by the next morning they have a new pair of goats Gavin brings back from town, and Connor is grateful for the reprieve.

Over the next day Connor slowly begins meandering around the house and then, with Natalia watching over the children, out into the garden for some fresh air. He leaves most of the watering to Hank but still goes to visit his beloved lilies, blooming and beautiful.

"You were wanted, too," he says quietly to the open air, touching a white flower. How deeply he wishes the twins had an older sibling instead of a small, nameless memorial planted in the garden. Perhaps Mrs. Collins was right: two blessings are needed to help heal the loss of one.

The babies grow stronger with each new day, squirming and fussing, responding to the sound of their parents' voices. Hank holds his son up high on his chest one evening, hand gently cradling the back of his dark head. "Black as coal," he remarks, touching the soft fuzz there.

Connor looks over at the same moment Hank's good eye meets his.

"Cole," Hank repeats, and Connor nods, a knowing smile spreading across his face. Their son, Cole Henry Anderson.

That night Connor pores over his handwritten list of names, still at a loss, and at the end of the evening he utters one word aloud to Hank in their bedroom, testing its rounded marble weight on his tongue: "Caroline."

"After who?" Hank asks, looking down at the babies sleeping in Connor's lap, snuggled together. Their daughter is flaxen-haired, golden like Hank's head of honeyed waves in his youth.  
  
"After no one," Connor says simply, clearing his throat. "She’ll be named after strength in and of itself—after a freed man.”

All Connor wishes for is that his children may live in a growing world where they flourish beyond the bounds of what is expected of them; that they rebel and fight and live the lives they set their hearts on. They don't have to know about a tired and beaten saloon worker, only the lifelong love that was found upon that person’s new beginning.

There is still so much to teach them, but for now Connor wants nothing more than to sit with his gentle husband and hold their babies close—not gazing back at the past but ahead at the many good years to come. These are his hard-won spoils; beautiful, wanted, and remarkably alive.

Yes, Connor Anderson is exactly who and where he wants to be.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: To my knowledge, one interpretation of the name Caroline literally means "a free man." I did not have any underlying motives to reference that as Connor's dead name, so my apologies for any past misunderstanding or confusion. Thank you! 
> 
> Source: https://nameberry.com/babyname/Caroline


End file.
